Home Projects

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First off, the theater room had an organizer I had purchased about six months ago from woot.com but had never assembled and installed.  As you can see, it does work but I would never buy a glass shelf/single rear pillar setup ever again.  Getting it leveled was a bear.

Before...

After

The last week or so the room has really be set straight.  It has gone from a stressfully messy room to one that I really enjoy spending time in.  Of course, the new projector you can see in this picture helps!  More on that in a follow up piece…

More of the room. Windows open for max photo light...

When my mom and dad were up for new years, they helped me to kick off a couple of projects that I had been contemplating – and putting off – for some time.  The first was installing some shelves into the weird wall indent we have in our basement.

Three shelves, note the "hide away" support brackets

Now with unboxed stuff...

Next was a “tank topper” for the main floor bathroom.  Since under the sink is dominated by cat supplies, it will provide a place to keep necessities like extra toilet paper and consolidate our medicine supplies into one location.  We got it at Home Depot and it has Oak Facing and while that is nice, it only came with two internal shelves and one of them is the bottom of the upper chamber.  In order to get the shelves as seen we bought a couple extra oak boards and I used a neighbors saws to trim them to the right size.  They are easy to pick out as the bottom shelf due to the fact we haven’t stained them yet.  We are waiting for warmer weather for that.  I was glad to have had cabinet hanging experience as it didn’t come with directions or screws.  We also had to put the towel ring on there as the other prime real estate is consumed by the vent work for the air exchanger.  The final touch was some clearance knobs for the doors from Lowes that better matched the brush nickel towel ring.

Storage!

It feels nice to have some projects completed and the house cleaner and more organized.

–Nat

Thoughts for later.

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Over the past weekend I started a couple projects with the help of Kristin and my mom and dad. After successfully completing them, pictures and descriptions later – I promise, I started looking at actually tackling some other home projects that I had been considered. In so doing, I stumbled upon some internet sites I want to keep track of.

Firstly, I want to build some real shelves into the basement “storage room.” As my parents noted, the cheapo metal shelf supports I purchased aren’t holding up their end of the bargain. Get it?

http://woodgears.ca/storage/shelf_plans/index.html

Those look pretty interesting. I think I want to change just about every aspect of how it is done – making at least one section deeper, making it shorter, using plywood for the shelving surface, etc. but somehow having a base plan makes it seem much more achievable. The garage would probably be better off with them too.

http://woodgears.ca/shelves/plan/low_bookshelf.html

I’d like to make that book shelf even lower and use it as a DVD/Game/media/center channel stand. I would modify other things too – for instance, I am thinking I could avoid the dowel work by using furniture screws, but at the same time I could use a drill bit and take out 1/2″ deep or so and put a short dowel in for the same look. Any thoughts on that? I think using screws would speed up the assembly considerably while reducing the chance of error as well.

Looking at that, I realized that high quality lumber, like Oak, is expensive but is what I would need to use in order to match the trim, etc. It would be a piece of entertainment furniture, so painting black might look good…

http://www.thefrugalgirl.com/2009/03/how-to-paint-wooden-furniture/

Tada! Instructions! The internet is great, isn’t it?

I have read that a desire to “finish” things is part of being an expectant father. It wasn’t something I had considered as a source of motivation, but I guess it works. Five months and counting…

–Nat

Done with classes!

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Last Monday was my last graduate class and it was a relieft to just come home tonight and have no class work on my mind. It is hard to believe that I have jumped through all the hoops, written the papers, taken the tests and done all of the presentations necessary. I remember how daunting the task seemed back during those first two classes. Those first two classes really indicated how things were going to play out, as well.

Strategic Quality Management – awesome class. We learned that there are frameworks for evaluating organizations and this provided a lot of perspective over my company and career. Assigments in this class were thought provoking and challenging. The cemented my desire to experience the entire program and I knew I was in the right place.

Supply Chain Synchronization. What a freaking snoozer of a class! The professor just sat up front and read us the book, we did projects that were only mildly interesting and sickeningly boring to present the rest of the class and I managed to fit my entire final paper onto one page that earned me an A. I only learned the curriculum through my reading of the book during class.

It was about 50/50 for these types of classes and the challenging ones made up for the lack of challenge presented by the others. I am also very critical of classes and can spot missed opportunities much more accurately than I can quantify the value of a class. I would still recommend the degree to anyone, but I will and have been very vocal to others about the classes to take and the ones to skip. Oddly enough, the required classes were mostly very solid and the optional ones were mostly weaker. Interesting how that works out, eh?

WOOOHOOO for being done! 🙂

–Nat

Team Juchems is growing!

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After careful consideration, Team Juchems has decided that expansion is the next logical step towards world domination.

Kristin and I are pregnant 🙂 That’s the right way to say it, I think, but I have come to accept that I am and will be wrong about a great many things. So it’s possible I botched it 😉

At the predicted recruitment rate we’ll have our first Team Juchems initiate in early June. Frankly, it is still a little bit unreal. From what I have been told, as the non-childbearing one this will likely hold true until the baby is actually born. At that point I have been assured “everything will change” which may or may not mean that I will grow gills and have to breathe underwater.

The baby room is painted, we are working to get that room further into shape tonight and are optimistic about the future. We’ll learn much more during the 70 minute ultrasound coming in January.

Overall, life is very good right about now 🙂

–Nat

A realization…

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During my time at St. Thomas, it has seemed at times that I have been “picked on.” This mainly consists of being held to seemingly higher standard for input than other students and being pushed back upon when turning in assignments. Now, I am aware that I may have some paranoia around how others perceive my performance so I have just written it off based on that up to this point. In a couple of my classes, however, even the other students remarked on it and I started thinking that there might just be something to this perception.

Last night I stayed a bit after class to discuss my final presentation that I had just given with the professor and we got off subject a bit to where he revealed that I am known as one of the “kids” in the program. Going on to explain further, this is not because of my age, which is somewhat unique, but rather that I come to these classes ready to learn and get value. “Bright-eyed” was the defnition, I believe. This is the same professor who last week pulled me aside and gave me some tips on presenting better. At the time, I took it as simple criticism.

Reflecting on this, I think that the professors and adjuncts of my classes have pushed me harder and given me more feedback is that they believe that it is a good investment of their effort. Rather than feeling picked upon, I should be greatful that I am getting more attention and bang for my buck, so to speak, than my peers.

In the moment it is hard to appreciate, though. I have to work better at not reading every criticism as negative.

–Nat

How to Train Your Dragon

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IMDB Link

Short take – this is a really fun movie that I could (and will, time and technology permitting) watch over several times, preferably in blu-ray on a big screen, and maybe someday in 3D.  The animation it top notch, the story is good without being overly dumbed down for a “child” audience, and frankly I enjoyed the time I spent watching it.  It is one of those few animated movies, like Ice Age, The Incredibles and WALL-E where I not only thought I had not only be entertained but had been told a true story in a way that paid homage to great film making.

Go watch it, you’ll be glad you did.

As an aside, we watched streaming from Amazon on our Blu-Ray player because it was only $.99.  I’ll be trying that service out some more, but first impressions are that quality is good but it is a little to easy to spend money on the Amazon Video On Demand (VOD) portal.  Some sort of screen that summarizes what you are getting and exactly how much you will really be charged, like many other online transactions, would be quite helpful.

–Nat

Fry’s Annoyance

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Being in Seattle, I was pretty happy to stop at Fry’s.  I didn’t have much that I needed and there wasn’t anything that was an deal I had to take home.  My Uncle Alex has a nice late 2006 iMac that only had one GB of ram, much less than the typical guidance for Mac OSX.  An excellent excuse to stop at Fry’s if there ever was one.

We wandered the store while I pondered whether I should scimp and get the clearance 2*1GB kit or splurge on a 2GB stick so that the total memory would be 2.5GB.  The difference was $12 (~25%) so I went with the $32 1GB*2 stick OCZ kit.  Down on checkout three, I signed the paperwork and waited patiently for the slow staff to get the memory.  The checkout lady took the credit card, swiped it, then handed my memory.  That’s when I noticed that someone had half-halfheartedly tried to tape the kit closed – it was either returned or a floor show piece kit.  In any case, not worth full price even if it was a reasonable clearance price.

That’s when things got really annoying.  The checkout lady refused to get another kit until she was instructed to do so multiple times by the on duty manager.  The guy in the cage supposedly said that all the kits were open, that is why they were on clearance.  I should have insisted seeing another kit if that was the case.  Then it turned out they were going to charge me a restocking fee to return it – even though I hadn’t signed the form.  Enraged at this point, I stalked back into the store, got a 2GB stick, used my new in-store credit to buy it, and left the store behind my entire family who had grown sick of waiting the fifteen minutes it took me to check out.

My Uncle’s iMac is snappier now.  I guess it was worth it.

–Nat

The Carrot Principle

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Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton, Copyright 2009 by O.C. Tanner Company, 235 Pages

Language: English, ISBN-13: 978-1-4391-4917-1

Overview

This book is predicated on the fact that there are four basic tenants for successful leaders: Goal Setting, Communication, Trust and Accountability.  Further, these four are essential but when paired with effective recognition (dubbed the “Accelerator”) they are incredibly augmented.  The book covers this basic premise, goes on to discuss the state of the things as based on the authors experiences and conclusions from various research projects, provides arguments for funding recognition, recognition suggestions (how to discover what is effective and then to pursue it), and wraps it up by discussing how new research suggests this is a world wide phenomenon with some geographic/culturally tendencies and research references.

The Smell Test

It gets a pass.  The beginning and end of the book is spot on and provide little reason to question the authors or their research.  In the middle it flags a bit and can come off a bit preachy and over-achieving in its recommendations.  The strong ties to research, even if it is somewhat dubiously tied to “Recognition” institutes gives it much credence than many other leadership books as it is based at least on some data and not just on the experiences of the author, a personal pet peeve of mine.

The Personal Reaction

This premise of this book is phenomenal.  Any leader who accepts the leadership role as “maximizing the output and well being” of those they lead could find this to book (idea) to be a breakthrough that helps them reach the next level of their leadership journey.  Throughout the book, many references are made about minimizing turn over and maximizing the potential that is already in house.  Specifically, its information on employee turnover and how it is likely the newest and brightest (and often the most insecure) that leave were eye-openers. If the middle was about 50% as verbose, that would be a huge plus, it was a challenge to read through the research results, which is something I would have likely skipped after a cursory look through had I not been reviewing the book.

Honestly, this was the first book that I have read in my studies at St. Thomas that I wanted to order another twenty copies off and give to all the managers, future managers and leaders that I know.  It is that good and succinct and resounds with me personally.   A simple idea and system are presented along with common roadblocks and speed bumps, examples of success stories and research to back it up.  It was like a condensed book form of much of Monson’s Human Factors class, which is high praise indeed.

–Nat

What team should I cheer for?

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The Vikings are done.  Furthermore, I think the season is going to get worse.  “Land Baron” Brett Favre will either get benched (deservedly) or possibly  suspended (debatable.)   Have you seen Jenn Sterger?  She looks like a 20 year old version of his wife… but its creepy that she is younger than his daughters…  he’ll probably be suspended from the bedroom until further notice, anyway.  Take Favre away and we have T-Jack – I am hopeful given another set of starts he’ll show a lot of  improvement from the last time.

That said, I need another NFL team to get behind.  I wanted to cheer for the Broncos, but they are pretty far back in their division as well – and let’s face it, their the Broncos.  The Patriots and Steelers are just bandwagon choices and the NFC North is also out (Bears, Lions, Packers).

So, dear readers, who should I cheer for?

–Nat